Читать книгу Men Against the Sea – Book Set. The Greatest Maritime Adventure Novels: The Bounty Trilogy, Lost Island, The Hurricane, Botany Bay, The Far Lands, Tales of the South Seas… онлайн

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Throughout the night the launch was kept close under the land. I had as my near companions Elphinstone,—the master’s mate,—and Robert Tinkler, youngest of the Bounty’s midshipmen, a lad of fifteen. The forebodings of the older part of our company were not shared by Tinkler, whose natural high spirits had thus far been kept in check by his wholesome awe of Captain Bligh. He had no true conception of our situation at this time, and it speaks well for him that when, soon enough, he came to an understanding of the dangers surrounding us, his courage did not fail him.

He had slept during the latter part of the night, curled up in the bottom of the boat with my feet and his bundle of cloathing for his pillow. Elphinstone and I had dozed in turn, leaning one against the other, but our cramped position had made anything more than a doze impossible. We were all awake before the dawn, and as soon as there was sufficient light we proceeded in a northeasterly direction along the coast. It was a forbidding-looking place, viewed from the vantage point of a small and deeply laden ship’s boat. The shore was steep to, and we found no place where a landing might have been made without serious risk of wrecking the launch. Presently we were out of the lee, and found the breeze so strong and the sea so rough that we turned back to examine that part of the coast which lay beyond the spot where we had spent the night. About nine o’clock we came to a cove, and, as there appeared to be no more suitable shelter beyond, we ran in and dropped a grapnel about twenty yards from the beach.